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With a new name and broader mission, the Center for Family Safety and Healing is gearing up to
reintroduce itself to the community.

“We are launching a full, communitywide public-education campaign,” said President Karen S.
Days. “And we’re not just talking to victims (of family violence). We’re talking to the
bystanders."

Days said officials want all central Ohioans to be engaged in raising awareness, changing
attitudes and helping to stop child abuse and other family violence.

Combined effort also is at the root of the center’s fresh identity. The Center for Family Safety
and Healing was created through the merger last year of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy at
Nationwide Children’s Hospital, which is a treatment and services center, and the Columbus
Coalition Against Family Violence, an advocacy group.

The first postmerger name — the Family Violence Coalition at Nationwide Children’s — proved
unpopular with clients and patients, Days said.

“They said, ‘I don’t want to walk into a building that says
Family Violence Coalition,’ ” she said. “We took that to heart.”

Days and other center employees had plenty of opportunities to hand out new-identity information
yesterday at the New Albany Classic. Proceeds from the equestrian competition and family festival
had always been for the exclusive benefit of the Columbus Coalition Against Family Violence, and
now the money flows to the center.

Abigail Wexner founded both the Columbus coalition and the Classic, which is held on the grounds
of the New Albany estate she and husband Leslie H. Wexner own.

Days said the Center for Family Safety and Healing, which remains a service of the hospital,
wants to expand treatment and counseling beyond children and serve elderly victims and other
adults, too.

“I think they were smart to bring all their energies together,” said Sharon McCloy-Reichard, the
executive director of CHOICES for Victims of Domestic Violence. “They’re doing good work.”

CHOICES works with the center and also has some staff members on site.

Days said she wants the campaign’s anti-violence messages to reach people who don’t think they’r
e touched by the problem.

After an awareness-training session one day, she said, a participant came up to her and
confessed that he’d remained silent when he saw an acquaintance slapping his girlfriend.

“They tune out,” Days said of some people. “We need them to tune in. We need them to be
ambassadors.”